New season asparagus - bundles of joy

The first English asparagus is in the shops now – thick stalked spears from the Wye Valley and there’ll be plenty more to come over the next eight weeks.

Whichever way you choose to cook asparagus - boiled, griddled (a combination of the two), steamed or oven roasted – don’t overdo it. The best spears are those that have only been a couple of hours out of the ground. They have an unbeatable, intense grassy flavour.

Serve asparagus with a fresh squeeze of lemon juice and butter; evoo – twitter speak for extra virgin olive oil -, balsamic vinegar and shaved parmesan cheese; with a Hollandaise to dip; blanketed in Parma ham; in a frittata with tarragon, or on a bed of cooked ham topped with a poached duck’s egg.

Asparagus festivals are held across the country from Essex to Yorkshire – see british-asparagus.co.uk for more details. Tomorrow sees the Great English Asparagus Run, starting at the Bell Tower in Evesham.

Watch a video on How to Cook Asparagus at timesonline.co.uk/realfood

Pershore plum festival

The Worcestershire town of Pershore champions its plums throughout August with a month-long festival, concluding with a plum fayre on August Bank Holiday.

The festival starts today with a market and the crowning of a plum princess. There’s also a touring heritage exhibition tracing the history of plums in the area and a plenty of plum varieties to savour, including Pershore Purples, Yellow Eggs and Emblems, as well as trees to grow your own.
Pershore began its association with plums in 1833 when a pub landlord found wild plums growing in a nearby wood. The Pershore Egg variety was developed and, because of its high pectin content, soon became the basis of much commercially sold jam in the UK.

Homegrown seasonal plums are a prize worth relishing fresh from the tree but local butchers also use their famous fruit to make the Pershore “plum” sausage using pork, spring onion, ginger and plum puree.

The town’s Abbey Tea Rooms has a range of plum-themed dishes on the menu such as homemade plum charlotte and a savoury roasted plum tart made with courgettes, peppers and topped with stilton all available with a plum flavoured black loose leaf tea.

Finally, eyes peeled for Churchfield Farmhouse plum ice cream at the farmers’ market on the August bank holiday. It’s a regional rival to the country’s only asparagus ice cream made by Spot Loggins on a nearby Evesham dairy farm.